Abyssal Wanderer

“In Bruegel’s ‘Icarus,’ for example;

How easily everything turned from that disaster;

The farmer may have heard the sound of falling into the water and the desperate cry,

But to him, it was not a spectacular failure;

The sun still shines on the white legs and falls into the green waves;

The magnificent and exquisite ship must have been seen;

A strange thing happened, a boy fell from the sky,

But he had somewhere to go, so he sailed quietly. "

The above poem comes from "The Art Museum" by Westin Hugh Auden, which describes the oil painting "The Fall of Icarus" by the Dutch painter Bruegel (the original painting and the original text of the poem will be posted in the comment area).

Unlike many oil paintings with mythological themes, Bruegel did not depict the tragic scene of Icarus' fall. Even in the whole painting, if you don't look carefully, it is difficult to even find the tragic ending of Icarus - he fell comically into the sea with his legs still kicking in the air.

The main body of this painting is some ordinary people and things: a farmer pushing a plow and a horse; a shepherd looking up while herding sheep; a fisherman setting a net for fishing; a gorgeous sailing ship Heading into the distance. No one noticed the tragedy of Icarus. Everyone was immersed in their daily lives, unaware that a person who had been so close to the sun disappeared from this world.

The title of this volume, "Rebooting Icarus," comes from William Gibson's novel "Rebooting the Mona Lisa." But the seed that gave birth to the plot in the first place was Bruegel's painting "The Fall of Icarus."

A person who is close to the sun dies silently and is not known to anyone. I hope to give Icarus a chance to restart, let him fly higher in the sky, closer to the sun, so that no one can pretend to ignore his existence.

Thus, the character Liao Qi came into being. A character destined to burn himself out in the end.

It can be said that "resistance" has always been my favorite theme, maybe even my favorite theme. I remember that NetEase Cloud Music’s music of the year the year before last was the song “TheRebelPath” in the hidden final mission of “Cyberpunk 2077”, “Turning my broken body into fire”.

Therefore, when I was writing this volume to the end, I was writing it while looping this song. At least I was very emotionally high.

Then I want to talk about an episode during the writing process.

My writing habit is to first think about the climax of the ending and several key plot points - some may be a sentence, and some may be the reveal of key suspense. Then the work of coding every day is to string together these touching nodes as reasonably as possible to form a complete story.

The plot of Liao Qi's mother's death was actually one of the earliest plots finalized at the beginning of the story design of this volume, and it was also the node with the highest degree of completion. When I was making the outline, I had even written part of the text in fragment form.

When it was first designed, it was actually Bai Dong's continuous treatment that miraculously cured Liao Qi's mother. She breaks free from the shackles of false simulation, remembers her son, and understands his thoughts. And just before the mother and son could finally reconcile, the company dog ​​took her life.

In the beginning, this plot was designed like this. But really when I wrote the eve of this plot. Specifically, while writing that specific chapter that day, I changed my mind.

Liao Qi's mother did not wake up from her cyberpsychotic delusions, and the mother and son did not reconcile. Liao Qi was not even able to see his mother for the last time, and her mother may have forgotten that she had such a son until her death.

One is because it would be a miracle to be able to cure cyberpsychosis. Since Liao Qi had already experienced the miracle of being able to come back from the dead and chase the sun again. Then fate shouldn't favor him like this, allowing him to reconcile with his relatives before dying.

Secondly, maybe I don’t think that true reconciliation can be achieved between people. Even if you can understand what the other person is thinking, even if it's with the person you love.

After all, is it necessarily wrong for Liao Qi's mother to hope that her son will join the company and get ahead? You know, if it had not been connected as a "controllable factor", Liao Qi's resistance would have ended in that cheap hotel. And if she continues to apply for the company, there is a high probability that Liao Qi's mother will not go crazy, and the mother and son will be able to survive - even if they live in pain, they will still be alive at least.

But for Liao Qi, that kind of life is not called alive, but "not dead."

Therefore, for the mother and son, the disagreement on this issue became an unsolvable contradiction, and they could never find a solution that was satisfactory to both parties. But maybe love is something that transcends this unsolvable contradiction - after all, even so, we will still love the people in our lives.

Well, other than that, let’s talk casually.

About cyberpunk.

I am a fan of cyberpunk works, and I should have dabbled in basically all the popular cyberpunk works that are well known to the public. In fact, the first book I originally planned to write was also about cyberpunk, but before I started writing it, I was so heartbroken by the awesome ideas in Daozhang's "Cyber ​​Heroes" that I couldn't write it in the end.

However, after being enlightened by the Secretary Lijian, I figured out some things about online writing, lowered my unnecessary persistence, and chose to reconcile with myself, no longer being pathologically demanding about rationality.

Ever since, I finally chose such a subject for creation. Although this subject matter is indeed quite cool, it seems that there has never been a phenomenal work like "Lord of Mysteries" to the Cthulhu Mythos. But I have to say that I still enjoy writing this book so far.

It must be said that it is difficult to write a fundamentalist cyberpunk novel in the form of an online novel. Therefore, when I write, I ask myself to just write a qualified online article with a cyberpunk style. I don’t seek merit but seek no fault. In addition, we are majoring in civil engineering after all, and most of our knowledge of programming is gained through home invasion-type data collection. If there are any common sense mistakes, please forgive me.

About Greek Mythology.

In William Gibson's "Count Zero," some Haitian gangs worship artificial intelligence that wanders the Internet as a voodoo god. This setting is also reflected in the world view of "Cyberpunk 2077". This design that combines advanced and wild, science and religion hit me right away.

I referred to this design when designing the world view of the novel. But when presenting it, I finally chose Greek mythology as the main subject. Firstly, many Greek mythological stories are familiar enough to lower the reading threshold for readers; secondly, the theme "destiny" that runs through Greek mythology is exactly related to the theme of this book.

By the way, the theme of this book is "free will."

In the process of writing, while arranging the plot and reviewing literature, the close connections between Greek mythology and stories always surprise me inadvertently. For example, Liao Qi, who is symbolized by Icarus, the reason for his fall is really just like in the fairy tale. Because he was framed by King Minos and locked in a maze, he could only fly out by making wings.

For another example, the hero who later killed the Minotaur monster in the labyrinth was Theseus. In the story of Theseus, he was really imprisoned in Hades - the same as Jiang Zhou.

So, in the process of writing. Many times, those mythical stories that were originally just used as backgrounds will actually affect the development of the story. I have to say that this writing experience is really novel and interesting.

About the title of the novel.

Although the title of this book is not as disastrous as the previous one, I did see a lot of complaints in the comments section. Let me tell you here that I am indeed wrong about my name. Even this title took me several days to come up with, and it was taken from William Gibson's "Neuromancer".

The original title of the book should actually be "Abyss Dark Web Wanderer", but probably because "Dark Web" is a sensitive word. After the book was released, the word darknet disappeared from both the title and the introduction.

Furthermore, although I understand that the title of this book is not good. But I’ve written so much, and it’s too troublesome to change the title, so let’s just leave it at that. We’ll definitely give the next book a good name.

About updates.

Sorry for the slow update! I will try my best to solve this problem in the future!

Alas, I can only say that when I was a reader, I would always complain that the author’s 6,000 updates a day were not enough. But now, I have to make 4,000 shifts a day to get perfect attendance. Wouldn’t that cost me my life?

I sincerely admire every author who can consistently achieve perfect attendance. You are all the best.

But on the other hand, if there is any lesson that the last book taught me, I think the biggest revelation is this - if you really can't write it today, don't force it. The hole dug in order to make up for the updated word count will kill you tomorrow if you don’t keep it all. So I won’t force myself now. If I really can’t finish it, I’ll just give it up and resume writing normally tomorrow. One thousand yuan a month for perfect attendance is like buying psychological therapy.

You see, I asked for leave after writing the first volume, but this month’s perfect attendance is gone again...

But if this can make the water flow trickle and flow longer, is that actually okay? Look at teachers Hengyi and Dubei next door. They both said that they should code 6,000 words and publish 4,000 words every day, and then save the manuscripts to give themselves a holiday. But in terms of results, it’s no more reliable than me who writes more than two thousand words every day, isn’t it (dense fog)?

In short, the goal at this stage is to get perfect attendance in October.

About grades.

Compared with this book, the results of this book are indeed much worse. The first order was less than 300, and the average order so far is barely over 1,500. But on the other hand, the reader retention rate of this book is much better than that of the previous book.

In addition, although the speed is relatively slow, the average order has been rising. Considering my update speed and the lack of recommendations due to this unstable update, I think this is a relatively good result.

Updates, subject matter, and poor handling of the previous book. Now I can completely accept the results of this book.

Anyway, thank you very much to all readers for your support! If you think this book is interesting, you can help recommend it to your friends who may also like the subject matter of this book!

Thanks here!

Finally, about the next volume.

The stage in the next volume will be on the ground in the Anold Zone, but it may also go to some other places. Compared with the underground of the settlement area, which is based on the slums of Latin America, the upper level of the settlement area will be closer to the traditional cyberpunk city filled with neon lights and cold rain.

In addition to the protagonist who is still trapped in the river boat in Tartarus, there is also a middle-aged detective who is sometimes cynical and sometimes exhausted - although I have to admit that I did refer to the mysterious novel structure before starting the book. But it’s really a coincidence that the protagonist of the second volume is a detective.

I am a loyal reader of Raymond Chandler, and I love the image of a tough-guy detective like Marlowe. Therefore, I hope that the story tone of the second volume can be designed to be more like a film noir.

Anyway. Due to the impact of the "Battle of Shattered Sky", the political forces in the entire Nord settlement area will undergo a major reshuffle. And our protagonist will be involved in conspiracies and turmoil in such a complex and chaotic background, get to know all kinds of people, and eventually further uncover the truth of the world.

In short, please look forward to the plot of the next volume!

Finally, I really want to play Baldur's Gate 3! ! ! (End of chapter)